Loop
by Kalira69
Summary: Desperate, Madara uses one of his partner's special jutsu he has never even tried to learn before - he should never be allowed to make such attempts without supervision, but luckily, it seems, the child version of Tobirama absolutely counts as supervision. (time/dimension travel)


Written for MadaTobi Week, Day 6: Time or Dimensional Travel

A head's-up that bb!Tobi _does_ freak out when grown!Madara appears, understandable, but it's not quite a panic attack, Madara does his best to be non-alarming, and it passes without much moment.

* * *

Tobirama poked the seal marker, feeling the resonance with his chakra but not how to make it do more than _thrum_. He scowled. The _theory_ was sound, he was sure of it, but no one had ever done anything even a little bit like this - nothing that he could find, and he had to figure it all out himself.

He'd been stuck for weeks now and he was afraid he might have hit the limit of what he _could_ actually figure out. He slumped a little, flicking despondently at his brushes where they were scattered over his desk. He'd crafted one of the markers on paper and poured energy into it to activate it with no connection and no idea what to do to initiate one in hopes that with it in front of him and _doing something_ he would somehow be able to figure out the next step.

He sighed and poked at the paper. It hadn't helped, not that he was particularly surprised at that.

Anija was going to be back soon - from the sneaky meetings at the river he thought Tobirama and everyone didn't know about; he was mostly right, but Tobirama had been worried and slipped after him a few times - and when he got back he'd no doubt come right here to drag Tobirama out of his room.

He prodded the seal laid out on his desk again and pushed chakra at it even though it was already active and living with it, and adding more wouldn't do anything in particular.

An oppressive pressure bloomed around him, hot and crushing, and Tobirama gasped, clutching his chest and jerking. He reached belatedly for a kunai, the only weapon in reach, his chakra too smothered and battered by the new presence to pull up, and then-

Tobirama choked as everything went black under a blanket of molten chakra.

* * *

"-fuck!"

Tobirama whined softly, his head throbbing and his skin feeling too tight, like he'd been too close to a searing katon.

"Tobi! Ah, kid, fuck, are you all right?" A gentle touch brushed his brow, warm and callused. "Fuck I can't do anything for overload without his seals. . ."

Tobirama frowned at the mutter, and cracked his eyes open with a tight, half-stifled little sound of pain. His eyes snapped open as he saw a deathly familiar emblem - red and white, bright, an _uchiwa_ \- on the shoulder of the man kneeling above him. He yelped and scrambled away, the gentle touch falling from his face as he moved, heart racing, scrabbling to reach for a jutsu or a weapon or _anything_-

The house was empty, his father was on patrol and his brother at the river, no one would hear anything if he called out or if they fought, and this was a _grown shinobi_, an Uchiha who had somehow made his way all the way into their compound, and-

And-

"Your chakra. . ." Tobirama choked as he made it to his feet again, if unsteadily, fingers shaking as he found only a brush within reach on the edge of his desk. "You-"

It was impossible. It was . . . _Madara's_ chakra? His brother's worrying Uchiha 'friend'?

Madara was younger than Anija, though, and this was-

"Hey, I'm sorry." Madara said, his face surprisingly soft. His eyes darted down to Tobirama's splayed fingers on his desk, then he leaned back a little. He reached out and Tobirama choked on a cry - not _his own_-

Madara gently slid his katana to him, barely touching it himself, only enough to get it moving. Tobirama inspected it quickly and snatched it up when it appeared in every way completely normal.

"I'm not here to hurt you. Or anyone. I promise." Madara said, his chakra heavy and painfully heated but still smooth. Restrained, if not calm.

"Who- _How did you **get** here?_" Tobirama demanded, fingers tightening around the hilt of his katana. His desperate grip ached a little, but he couldn't bring himself to loosen it.

"Ah, that-" Madara turned slightly, dragging at his own hair - it was so _long_, it looked like it could swallow him up if he weren't such a large _presence_ himself - and Tobirama froze. There was a familiar mark on his neck.

Tobirama glanced down at the paper on his desk, the marker he had made _himself_, hadn't even _shown_ anyone else, ever, then back up to the crimson lines at one side of Madara's throat, the marker there shivering as the muscles beneath flexed.

He looked pained as he turned back to Tobirama. "I'm not . . . quite sure. I used one of _your_ jutsu, and you-" his voice cracked. "You'd laugh at me and have my head at once; I don't know how it works exactly and this is _not_ what it was supposed to do. I was trying to find you, but. . ."

"Me?" Tobirama said faintly, reeling.

Madara sank back, crossing his legs, and his shoulders sagged. "You, but. . . _My_ you." He smiled slightly, the expression looking painful and unsteady. "All grown and- and-"

"He - _I_ \- put _that_ on you?" Tobirama asked, pointing.

Madara twitched and straightened, reaching for the marker on his skin with a gentle stroke of his fingertips. "He did." he said softly. "After he finally got me back, when- when I was taken by Iwa-nin and they had better seals than they had any right. It took him a month to track me with my chakra gone." A bitter twist to his mouth and a shadowed look in his eyes like the one Touka's father had sometimes, especially when her mother was mentioned.

Tobirama wanted to ask what had happened, if not about 'Iwa nin', but he knew better than to do so. Not with that look.

"When he got me back," Madara said, with a quirk of his lips, "he . . . was about as much of a mess as I was. He swore he'd never lose me again."

Tobirama considered that, considered how _he_ felt, the lengths he would go to, to keep safe his few precious people. The few he had left.

"A few people thought he insisted." Madara said softly. "I let him. He only asked." He brushed the marker with his fingertips again. "Though he probably would have begged, if. . ." He shook his head. "I've never wished to hide from him, and knowing he wanted to be able to come to me, always. . ." Madara shrugged, giving Tobirama a smile that didn't quite mask the look in his eyes.

It made Tobirama shiver but he wasn't quite sure what it was. Dark and deep, it wasn't . . . absent or shadowed, it didn't look _bad_, but. . .

Madara looked away. "I didn't have any way to do the same, when he disappeared." he said softly. "But I tried to go to him. Maybe . . . the wrong way."

"What did you do?" Tobirama demanded, frowning.

Madara pulled a sheaf of rolled papers from his sleeve. "I tried to use one of his jutsu; I've never learned it before, and never-" he broke off absently, and Tobirama tore his gaze away from the papers - he could see a _fuinjutsu array_, and notes referencing chakra transmutation, and a phrase about dimensional displacement, all in a hand that was almost-familiar - to look up at Madara, confused.

"Never what?" Tobirama prompted when he didn't continue, and Madara set the papers on Tobirama's chair, still pushed out from his desk - he had to hold himself back not to dart to them immediately - and reached up, the uchiwa on his shoulder catching the light, to brush his fingers by one dark eye.

Tobirama's heart squeezed painfully, his stomach knotting.

_Uchiha._ Of course, Tobirama thought, squirming uncomfortably. Sharingan.

"Oh." Tobirama said in a strangled tone.

"Tobi-" Madara's voice hitched. "Tobirama-kun?"

"You. . . You use . . . _them_ . . . to learn _his_ jutsu?" Tobirama asked awkward, fidgeting.

"Sometimes." Madara said quietly. "I also learn them the, ah, usual way."

Tobirama fidgeted.

"I'm sorry if I. . ." Madara trailed off.

"Have I- Has he-" Tobirama bit his lip. "Does he make lots of jutsu?"

Madara blinked, then laughed, startlingly loud, but warm and fond, not mocking. "Oh. So many." he said with a smile. "You're the cleverest person I've ever met, and _always_ making new things. I love to listen to Tobi talk about whatever he's working on . . . even when I don't - can't - grasp the sense of all of it."

Tobirama blinked at him, feeling his cheeks warm. Madara smiled at him.

Tobirama ducked his head, and caught sight of the papers again. He leaned towards them, then pulled himself back, tucking his free hand against his ribs and reminded by the yearning movement that he was still clinging to his katana. He eyed Madara carefully.

"You can look at them." Madara sighed. "Maybe you'll- I probably missed something. It's . . . confusing."

Tobirama hesitated. "_Really?_" he asked, and Madara nodded, gesturing in invitation.

Tobirama propped his katana against his desk and inched closer, picking up the papers and beginning to read, picking through something that seemed to refer to . . . something that hadn't been included on these sheets. Then he reached the first mention of chakra charging and the morphology of dimensional displacement, and his breath caught.

"Oh! _Oh!_" Tobirama cried, sinking down into his chair, eyes wide, skimming the papers and taking in every word, the little diagrams, the intuitive leaps and- _Of course!_

". . .you _understand_ this?" Madara questioned.

Tobirama jumped, looking up from the notes. He'd _forgotten_ there was an Uchiha in his bedroom; Tobirama never would have thought that was _possible_. "Of _course_ I do. I've been working on it for _months_, you know." he said, huffing. Longer, even, it had just only been in a recognisable form for months.

. . .and now, actually, with this- with the notes from an older version of himself, Tobirama thought he could finally make it _work_, for real, _fully_. He bit his lip, suppressing his glee at the idea. The notes weren't, of course, quite the jutsu he had been trying to make work, but with the more complex applications of similar theory his . . . his older, other self had been working with here, he could reverse the theory and figure out what he was _missing_. Maybe. Probably. It would help him get it further, even if it wasn't properly the explanation of what he had been working towards.

Tobirama muttered to himself, tracing his fingers over one of the diagrams, trying to frame it in his head properly. He reached out and felt for a brush, fumbling a little as he wasn't looking up quite enough, and dragged a fresh piece of paper closer.

He carefully kept the notes out of the way of his ink as he worked through an approximation of the layout that must be needed, frowning. What he'd written out was useless, but. . . But the theory laid out in the truncated notes made proper sense now.

Tobirama nodded to himself, humming, and pushed his own notes away, flipping through the pages hoping to find- Ah, there . . . yes, that made much more sense.

"Oh for fuck's sake." Madara muttered, and Tobirama twitched again, looking up to find that Madara had risen and was standing almost over him, and he hadn't _noticed_. He found he wasn't . . . alarmed, though. Not any more. "I am never going to hear the end of this."

". . .what?" Tobirama asked tentatively.

Madara sighed. "Not only did I get myself into trouble with one of your jutsu, but _you_, you're- how old are you?" He shook his head. "The tiny version of you practically just glanced at your notes and made sense of everything in about five minutes."

"You're- You're going to tell . . . him?" Tobirama asked, a little surprised.

"What? Of course. If-" Madara's voice faltered and he swallowed. "If I can get back to him." His eyes trailed over the seals on the papers spread out before Tobirama, lingering more on the notes and theory written in messily-precise characters, though from what he had said he didn't _understand_ any of what was-

Oh. Tobirama looked at them again himself. His handwriting - well, the . . . older him, _his_ handwriting, changed a little from what Tobirama expected in his own notes. Madara was. . . Tobirama took a quick, subtle glance upwards. Madara had a soft look, something painful in his eyes. He wasn't looking for the sense of them, Tobirama thought. He was looking at the hand of the- of the _other_, older Tobirama.

"I don't know what you were trying to do," Tobirama said, looking away again, "but. . ." He fiddled with the corner of one of the scrolls, then turned towards Madara and hesitated. He reached up, quick, and tapped the marker on Madara's throat, a little surprised when Madara let him without so much as a flinch. "If this has his chakra in it," it did, Tobirama could suddenly feel it, with the contact, and it staggered him; familiar, like an embrace, but with so much . . . _more_ to it than his chakra carried now, "I think I can send you back to the reality _you_ came from . . . that I can send you to where he is."

"You can?" Madara said, his voice raw.

"I . . . think so." Tobirama said, squirming uncomfortably. "I can't promise. I don't know- I've never even made it work normally. And it's not designed for that. But he marked . . . _you_, and you have chakra of your own so it . . . it's an anchor but it's also something more."

Madara blinked at him, then smiled slightly. "I have no idea what that might mean." he said, almost gently. "I'm not stupid but this is so far outside what I do, and. . ." He sighed. "I _do_ trust you, though."

". . .me?" Tobirama said faintly. "I'm not- I mean," he paused, swallowing, "I'm not . . . _him_." He pointed to the marker that Madara had allowed some other Tobirama, older and much stronger, to scar into his skin permanently.

"I know." Madara reached out and Tobirama froze, not quite frightened but not quite calm. Madara brushed his shoulder with a light touch and then squeezed it. "You." he confirmed. "If you say you think you can do it, I believe you can."

"Oh, I- I. . ." Tobirama squirmed in his chair, and Madara rested a hand atop his hair for a moment. He swallowed and took a breath. "I'll do my best."

"You always have." Madara said simply.

Tobirama nodded rapidly, then ducked his head to keep from having to look at Madara. "I. . . I'll have to work on it." Tobirama said, fiddling with the edge of one of the pieces of paper spread over his desk.

"Take your time." Madara said quietly, and Tobirama relaxed slightly.

Then he looked up, giving Madara a weak smile. He tilted his head, and Tobirama ducked down a little. "Ah. . . Father will be back . . . soon. And," he paused, "and Anija."

". . .ah, yes. Of course." Madara blinked, looking startled. He winced. "Foolish of me to forget. Do . . . you need me to leave? To go away from you, from _here_, that is?"

"Oh." Tobirama blinked at him, then considered that, eyes wide. "_Oh._ Oh I- Perhaps it would be better if you, erm, stayed in here." He glanced at the door, which Hashirama would _definitely_ be coming through as soon as he got home. "Maybe."

"Why don't I stay here with you and I can . . . hide somewhere else if your father," his lip curled, just a little, "or brother approach?" Tobirama hummed, eyeing him. "I'm a sensor as well." Madara said, then paused, smiling slightly as he sank down to sit against the wall, one arm draped over his upraised knee. "Not as strong as you are, but I don't think there's anyone who is, in this."

"I'm not . . . _that_ good." Tobirama shook his head.

"You've got the talent to be. You're still," Madara paused, almost _grinning_ at him, "tiny."

"I am _not_ tiny." Tobirama said firmly, and then turned back to his desk when Madara only laughed softly. It was still warm and friendly, though, not- not mean.

"You are . . . compared to the you I am used to." Madara said softly, and Tobirama wasn't sure the wistful, longing tone was actually intended for his ears. He snuck a look sideways at Madara from behind his fringe.

Madara hadn't said what Tobirama, _his_ Tobirama, the older one, really _was_ to him, but. . . The way he looked when he spoke of his Tobirama, the sound of his voice, his words. . . Tobirama's eyes strayed to the mark on his throat.

Tobirama bent his head back over his desk and got to work, his focus narrowing to nothing more than the characters and diagrams his older, other self had written, and the spinning of theory and chakra in his mind.

Madara might have claimed he didn't understand the older Tobirama's work, but when Tobirama talked out a few confusing bits he'd gotten hung up on Madara offered helpful suggestions - and on one point, information - and talked him around them with apparent ease. When Tobirama had to test a few things, he stayed back, but watched avidly, and-

Tobirama's cheeks warmed when Madara complimented him with what certainly appeared to be impressed sincerity. He fidgeted, and Madara brushed a hand over the top of his head, then his cheek. "Good job. You're so _fast_ when you pick up something new." he said quietly, lips quirking.

Tobirama cleared his throat and changed the subject, gathering up all of the other Tobirama's notes and checking with his senses that there was no one nearby before leading Madara outside. Just to the little packed-dirt practise ground just behind the house, shy of the garden beyond.

Madara helped him clear a large space, though he asked Tobirama to explain what he was doing. There had to be a fuinjutsu array to power the push through, as there was a dimensional shift unaccounted for which Madara had to get past . . . and with something a little more like a reverse summoning than the transport jutsu Tobirama had been working on and this was extrapolated from. Even if it was triggered from the outside.

Madara moved over the circle when it was finished, but paused and brushed Tobirama's shoulder. "Is this safe, you're sure?" he asked, and Tobirama frowned.

"It's as safe as I can _tell_; if it can't get you across the dimensional gap that got you _here_ it should just . . . leave you here. Or it might take you to yourself in _this_ world." Tobirama said, wincing. "If you don't want to risk it, though, I-

"Not that." Madara said, squeezing Tobirama's shoulder and then tilting his head up with a light touch under his chin. "I know there are no guarantees with something like this, and I'm sure it's as good as you can make it, which is better that most. No, is it going to be safe for _you_; it's you outside who will be setting it with chakra . . . are you sure it won't take too much?" Madara asked.

Tobirama blinked. "Oh." His cheeks warmed. "No, I. . . I should be fine. It won't take too much." he assured Madara. He might be drained afterwards, but it wouldn't be to a _dangerous_ level, and it wasn't like he could get anyone else to do it. Sometimes when he had something bigger than he could manage Anija would help him, but even if it weren't so uncertain whether Hashirama _would_ or not - it was always difficult to tell, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his responses - he could hardly ask for _this_.

"If you're sure." Madara said softly, and searched Tobirama's face with a knowing look on his own. "I don't want to get home at your expense."

"It's all right." Tobirama said, ducking his chin and then lifting his head and smiling at Madara. "Besides, isn't . . . doesn't _your_ . . . me . . . need you?" he asked.

Madara stilled, then huffed softly. "I hope so." he said, barely a breath. "He's been gone for. . ."

"I'm sure he's waiting for you." Tobirama said firmly. He reached up and tapped the marker on Madara's throat. "Let's get you back to him." he said as the chakra in the marker grew active under his touch once more.

Madara nodded and moved to crouch in the centre of the fuinjutsu they had laid out together as Tobirama backed to the outside of it. He put his fingers to it, both hands, and began to build up the web of chakra it would take to activate.

"You're such a brilliant ninja, Tobi," Madara said as the fuinjutsu shifted to pulling from him, rather than simply being fed, "thank you."

Chakra _rushed_ over Tobirama like the strongest suiton he'd ever called multiplied many times over, washing into and _through_ him until he felt like he was going to explode. A conduit snapped into place, chakra swirled, the molten heat of Madara's signature all but _erupted_, making Tobirama dizzy, and then with a surprisingly gentle rush - more of twining mesh than opposing forces clashing - Madara disappeared.

Tobirama wavered and fell back on his butt in the dirt, giddy and buzzing with energy, more chakra than he'd ever had filling him up until it _hurt_.

It was _his_, though; it was strong and dizzying and a little cooler than his own, and felt both strange and familiar, but it was . . . his.

Madara had returned to the older Tobirama - to _his_ Tobirama, grown enough to match him - and the link formed to bridge the place between dimensions had. . .

Tobirama would have anticipated being _drained_, if anything, left weak and achy with it, in the aftermath of the jutsu, not _this_.

"Tobi!" Hashirama called, and Tobirama startled, lifting his head with a shiver as his chakra rippled in his veins. "Otouto. . . Where are you?" Hashirama called, moving around the house and outside as he did.

Tobirama hauled himself to his feet, faintly surprised not to be doing so from _mud_, but there was no actual water around him, for all he had _felt_ it. The other Tobirama was so . . . strong.

"There you are! . . .what have you been doing, Tobi?" Hashirama asked, delicately poking the fuinjutsu scratched into the dirt with the toe of his sandal.

Tobirama shook his head. At least he was _done_ with it. He glanced it over, but he knew . . . he wouldn't _ever_ forget that seal, though he would never need to use it again. "Just . . . working on some experiments, Anija." he said, and cleared his throat when it felt a little thick as he spoke.

"Oh. That's good!" Hashirama said, though he looked slightly uncertain.

Tobirama smiled crookedly, but nodded. "It is. Hey, Anija?"

"Yes?" Hashirama asked, leaning against him gently and winding an arm around him.

"Want to spar?" Tobirama asked, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet and feeling faintly dizzy with the chakra built up inside him. He _wanted_ to do something - to move, to run, to fight, to _use it_ \- and it was all but spilling out of him already, there was so _much_ of it.

Hashirama laughed, but smiled. "Sure, Tobi! Now?"

"_Now!_" Tobirama agreed, seizing Hashirama's wrist and dragging him away from the fuinjutsu towards the grassier area that spread out towards the garden proper.

* * *

Sitting in a tree some distance from the safety of the Senju compound, Tobirama worried his lip between his teeth. All his senses were extended to their most painful limit, chakra poured into them to keep the signatures he was focused on lit up in his mind. He tracked his father and the little squad he was taking with him, and then stretched his abilities to feel Anija and Madara. Beyond them, there was. . .

Tobirama took a breath, then another, deep and slowing as he exhaled. Then he reached for the marker he had put on Anija's shirt.

The world dissolved and reformed in a swirl of chakra and shouting.

"What the hell!"

"Tobi!"

Tobirama winced. "Hey! You need to get out of here!" He turned towards his brother, figuring he was more likely to listen to Tobirama . . . maybe.

"Tobi! He's my _friend_!" Hashirama darted forwards and caught Tobirama's arm as Madara's shouting grew louder. "I know you don't-"

"I know." Tobirama said, and huffed. "Honestly, Anija, you're the least sneaky ninja _ever_. I've known for months."

Hashirama stared, eyes wide. Even Madara fell silent, though only after he made an undignified squawking noise. "Then- I- Why. . ?"

"Because _I'm_ being nice about it." Tobirama said, and bit his lip as he glanced at Madara. "Father won't."

"_Father?_"

"_Least sneaky ninja ever_, Anija." Tobirama reminded, punching him in the ribs lightly. "I told him you were practising alone and he left off for a while but you've been disappearing _way_ too often and he _knows_ you." He sighed. "You wouldn't have worked that much without orders, or without me."

"Oh. I. . ." Hashirama looked downcast.

"You led your _father_ here?" Madara demanded, tense.

"Yours is coming too." Tobirama snapped, but- He remembered the soft look on the adult Madara's face, and the aching hurt at the loss of _his_ Tobirama, all grown up and . . . _something_ to each other, and the joy when Tobirama had been able to help him. . . Tobirama couldn't, quite, be harsh to Madara. No matter how he glared. Not even this one, a world away from the older Madara he had met. "Your brother along with him. _Very fast._ We _all_ need to _leave_."

Madara cursed softly, leaping back across the river, then hesitated, glancing back.

"Will you come again?" Hashirama called, looking miserable now.

Madara scowled, his molten, sparking chakra roiling inside him, then . . . nodded.

"Go somewhere _else_, for kami's sakes. Coming to the same spot every time and always. . ." Tobirama muttered and ducked his head as they both looked at him. "Anija, come on."

"I'll meet you again. In a few weeks, when it's safe." Madara called, then- "Tobi?"

Tobirama jumped, eyes widening, and turned to stare at him.

". . .thank you." Madara ducked his head, then bolted, and Tobirama almost forgot they needed to do the same before his brother's grip on his arm tightened, pulling him onwards.

Tobirama pulled himself together and ran, outpacing his brother and dragging Hashirama on with him in a different direction. If they could contrive to be found, sparring and practising together, alone, out here, then _probably_ their father would be convinced it was only Hashirama trying hard - for once - to please him, and the lie about practising alone was Tobirama trying to make him look better.

* * *

**Omake:**

"Tobi?"

Tobirama purred lazily, tilting his head as Madara's fingers combed through his hair.

"I've- I've always wondered something." Madara said softly, leaning forwards over his lover's head in his lap. Tobirama smiled slowly and opened his eyes with a flutter of silvery lashes and a curious sound. The inquisitive look made Madara smile; it had been the same on the very small version of his lover he had met unexpectedly a few months ago; apparently Tobirama had simply always been this way. He couldn't be surprised at that. "When- When we were kids, and you came. . . You _warned_ us, me and your brother. . ."

"Mm?" Tobirama prompted as Madara hesitated, and he took a breath.

"What made you trust me?" Madara asked quietly. "That- What you did, it . . . helped. Both of us. And our dream. And I can't imagine, if we hadn't dragged Izuna in, if your brother hadn't insisted after you started joining us. . ."

He _could_ imagine, was the problem; remembered the way Izuna had started harbouring hurt when Madara grew older, when he had to go on missions, when he left and Izuna could not . . . when Madara kept secrets from him. Remembered the way Izuna had begun to listen not just to their father's bitterness but attached himself to a distant cousin a little older than Madara who had lost his entire immediate family in a raid and been . . . vindictive because of it.

When Madara had wanted to share a secret with his brother, had begged him to come, to trust, Izuna had been swayed back, but it had taken some time. If Madara never had, or if he'd been fighting their father over his excursions. . . If he'd waited longer. . . He might have lost his brother for good.

He squeezed Tobirama's shoulder reflexively, and Tobirama reached up to catch his hand, head tilting to nuzzle and kiss his wrist. "You did." he said softly, and Madara made a confused sound.

Tobirama smiled, rolling over and drawing himself up to his knees. "_You_ did, my love. Not that you, but this one. _Mine._" he said with a sweet smile, sliding into Madara's lap and winding his arms around Madara's shoulders.

Madara blinked, then- "Wait, _me_?"

"You, like this," Tobirama said softly, trailing his fingers over Madara's throat, over the comforting wash of his chakra that lived in the mark permanently sunk into Madara's skin, "you were . . . _terrifying_, when I was young," he laughed, "but you were also . . . very convincing. I couldn't hate the same boy I knew would grow up to look like _this_ when he talked about _me_." he said, looking away briefly.

"You. . ." Madara blinked, mind whirling. Tobirama. The small Tobirama. He'd wondered, he'd thought- But there had never been anything, and the young Tobirama had said things about dimensions and realities and. . . "You were very cute." he said wryly.

Tobirama laughed, stroking Madara's cheek and toying with his hair. "You were very sweet, when I was so very frightened." he said softly. "I could see it in you when we met properly, you and I. It made it . . . easier to trust you."

"I love you." Madara said, winding his arms snugly around Tobirama's waist and kissing him, soft and lingering.

Tobirama rested his brow against Madara's as their lips parted. "I think I started to fall in love with you the day you blushed over realising you had been calling me an intimate nickname because you didn't even know my proper name." he said, and Madara's heart squeezed.

"Tobi. . ."

"Hokage-sama! . . ._ah_, I- Sorry, Hokage-sama!"

Madara growled, jaw tightening, and Tobirama smothered laughter. The messenger had crashed into the little clearing, then immediately spun to put his back to them.

"You're needed at the tower, Hokage-sama!"

Madara pulled Tobirama down into a kiss before he could pull away, and Tobirama smiled, purring low in his throat. Madara couldn't resist a nibbling, sucking kiss to his lover's lower lip, lingering. . .

Then he released it with another sigh. "All right, I'm coming." he said, and glanced back at Tobirama as his lover slipped away to let him rise. "See you-"

"I'll be in my workroom all afternoon, if you're busy. I'll see you at home for dinner, unless you need me." Tobirama said simply.

"Always." Madara told him sincerely, but nodded as Tobirama smiled. "See you at home, darling."


End file.
